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Definition of fullerene in English:

fullerene

noun

Chemistry

A form of carbon having a large spheroidal molecule consisting of a hollow cage of sixty or more atoms, of which buckminsterfullerene was the first known example. Fullerenes are produced chiefly by the action of an arc discharge between carbon electrodes in an inert atmosphere.

‘Structural relatives to fullerenes, carbon nanotubes have been the object of theoretical work for the past few years.’

‘Buckyballs are members of a class of all-carbon, cage-shaped molecules now known as fullerenes.’

‘Because of their symmetry, fullerenes need no other atoms to satisfy their surface chemical bonding requirements.’

‘Carbon nanotubes emerged from research into the all-carbon soccerball-shaped molecules known as the fullerenes.’

‘His research group has managed to fire a fullerene molecule, which contains sixty carbon atoms, through two separate apertures at once, demonstrating quantum superposition at a surprisingly large scale.’

‘Researchers have been looking for ways to use the soccer-ball-shaped molecules of pure carbon known as fullerenes, or buckyballs, since they were first synthesized, about a decade ago.’

‘The arrangement of the atoms is similar to that found in fullerenes - the near-spherical carbon structures also known as buckyballs.’

‘But the conclusions from these studies are difficult to interpret, in part because the nanomaterials that they used were contaminated with an organic solvent added to mobilize the fullerenes in water.’

‘Earlier this year, Eva Oberdoerster, an environmental toxicologist with Southern Methodist University, found brain damage in fish exposed to the fullerene molecules.’

‘Iijima was investigating a technique used to make carbon molecules called fullerenes, in which dozens of carbon atoms are joined together in hollow cages.’

‘This newly synthesized molecule is the smallest member of the family of closed-cage carbon molecules known as fullerenes.’

‘Molecules of fullerene are more commonly referred to as ‘buckyballs.’’

‘Discovered in 1991 by Japanese scientist Sumio Iijima, carbon nanotubes are cylindrical carbon molecules that are very similar in structure to a fullerene, or buckyball, but instead of being a sphere, the nanotube is tubular in shape.’

‘Also known as fullerenes, buckyballs have recently been touted for their potential applications in everything from drug delivery to energy transmission.’

‘Extracts of material from New Zealand dating back to a meteor impact 65 million years - during the Cretaceous-Tertiary, K-T - period were thought to contain fullerenes because of intriguing peaks in their chromatograms.’

‘In future work, Sitharaman plans to use existing methods of attaching antibodies and peptides to fullerenes to try to create a contrast agent that will bind only with diseased cells such as cancer cells.’